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Dessert

English Guava

A preserve made from guava and sugar, boiled and strained into molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

English Guava

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the stalks from the guavas and cut some of them.

  2. Place the guavas in stone jars and add a few imperatrice plums if available.

  3. Put the jars in pans of water and boil them.

  4. Drain the juice and strain it through a jelly bag.

Make the preserve

  1. Weigh the juice and boil it quickly for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Stir in ¾ lb of sugar for every lb of juice until dissolved.

  3. Remove any scum and boil the preserve again for 8 to 12 minutes.

  4. Check if it jellies firmly on the skimmer; if not, boil longer.

  5. Pour the finished preserve into shallow pans or small molds.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Shepherd's bullace (or other plums)
Provides pectin and acid that help the preserve set into a firm jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, with boiling, thickens the juice and helps it set.

The step that matters

Checking the set on the skimmer. Boiling too briefly leaves the juice runny, while the sugar and pectin need enough concentration to gel. Testing on a cold skimmer shows whether the preserve has reached a firm set before it is poured.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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